Metal element based textile products and their use for reinforced articles have been extensively described in the prior art. An example of such textile product is exemplified in WO 2005/118263 describing metal cord based technical textile products with in warp direction parallel metal cord and in weft direction parallel textile yarns or fibers.
In order to manufacture such a reinforced article, following the compression moulding process, composite fabrics comprising the metal based textile product are subjected to a temperature and/or pressure sufficient to cause a polymeric material, optionally containing polymer fillers and/or short/long reinforcing fires (such as glass, aramid, carbon, ceramic, . . . ), to flow and fill the interstices between the metal filaments. This can be done in one step or may require subsequent steps. Possibly, other polymer material, e.g. polymer sheets, are added or a layer of polymer material is extruded around.
A more preferred metal element based textile product for preparing reinforced articles would be a textile product having a stable structure during the processing whereby the textile product retains its parallel arrangement and geometry.
A highly preferred metal element based textile product would be a textile product which maintains its properties in further production steps of manufacturing the reinforced article such as wet impregnation characteristics and processability towards laminating, extrusion, pultrusion, reaction injection moulding, injection, resin transfer moulding, resin infusion and compression moulding.
It is known to add a parallel roving to the metal cord or simply using higher tex value yarn for binding the metal cord, thereby increasing the preload tension during manufacturing. A 1 tex yarn is a yarn that weighs 1 gram per 1000 m. This addition reduces the free reachable surface of metal cord, or in other words, generates a shielding effect, resulting in inferior impregnation, less adhesion and reduced impact resistance.